A Captain's Heart
by blob80
Summary: A collection of shorts for Eustass "Captain" Kid's birthday (01/10). All chapters are in Kid's POV and occur during the two year time skip. Ratings vary. There's fluff, if you squint. –Established Kid/FemOC relationship–
1. A Captain's Heart

_Disclaimer: I don't own One Piece._

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A loud explosion blew a cloud of smoke and fire into the sky.

"Watch where you're throwing those things, Nettie!" Kid shouted, as he dodged another flask. It burst mid-air a few feet behind his head, and he turned with a furious snarl at the woman responsible. Was she trying to kill him? Because he'd gut her first. "Get in my way again, and I'm going after you!"

"It was an accident, Captain!" she yelled back from her position up on the crow's nest of their ship.

"Like hell it was!"

"Well, I knew you'd dodge."

"So, you actually admit to lying to my face?" he snarled, but his attention was soon taken when he felt a vicious burst of intent a distance away.

It wasn't long before one of his other crew members shouted for him to look across the sea. Kid found two more Marine warships headed their way. He cursed under his breath. This was what he hated about marines—they came in _waves._ At least pirates had the decency to attack all at once.

"What should we do, Captain?" A crew member asked.

"Get rid of them of course," another said, while drawing a set of twin blades from the sheathes he had tied around his hips. "Don't let them get any closer to the captain!"

"No further," one of their more stoic members said in agreement, as he cut another Marine down.

"Yea, I don't want to deal with more grunts," Kid decided, while deftly sidestepping the downward slash of a saber. He brutally kicked the Marine that had tried to cut him. It was strong enough that the sorry idiot went flying straight into the ocean. Oh, Kid really hoped that he was a Devil Fruit user.

"Captain hasn't had breakfast yet!" another crew member snickered from across the ship. "We'd better deal with them quick, before he goes berserk and kills us all."

"What was that?" Kid summoned a fist of metal. Marines screamed in the background. "Say that to my face!"

"I was joking, Captain!"

"I'll take one," Killer suddenly volunteered, his weapons at the ready. He jumped on the ship's rails, then kicked off with inhumane speed towards the closest enemy battleship.

"That's one."

"Whoa, look at him go!" the crew cheered when the enemy ship's mast got sliced in half.

Kid clicked his tongue in irritation when his stomach suddenly growled. He was about to go and do the final one himself when someone shouted his title. He looked back up to the Crow's nest to find Nettie with her arm half raised in offering.

"I'll take the other," she said.

He raised an eyebrow. "Then what are you waiting for?"

"I need your help, Captain."

Kid made a noise of approval, before raising his hand in preparation.

Nettie's dark hair billowed in the air behind her, as she jumped onto the banisters. She loosened the white cravat around her neck and placed her goggles over her eyes in preparation. Nettie reached into the pockets of her polka-dot lab coat to grab flasks filled with bubbling liquid. Each one had a corkscrew top with tiny metal needles embedded inside. The way she waved the flasks in her hands had some of the crew members backing up in unease. They _all_ knew what those tiny glass encasements held, and not one of them wanted to be in the way once their captain used his powers to fling them onto the enemy ship. They were more effective than any cannonballs their ship could fire.

"Incoming," she warned, before dropping the flasks.

Kid hastily dropped his goggles over his eyes. The crew heard the familiar sparks of electricity, before they saw the purple currents emit from their captain's hand.

"Repel!" he said.

The flasks took off in the direction of the enemy battleship. Crew members ducked left and right to avoid unintentionally getting caught in the line of fire, as Kid blindly threw the bombs forward. There was a moment of silence until the flasks hit home. They could tell when the contents within spilled out into open air because there was a quick siphoning of breath all around a twenty meter radius. The winds, themselves, seemed to boil. The salt in them grew denser in a way that made it hard for them to breathe.

But then the moment passed, and the blasts that followed tore the warship apart. It was a tsunami of lawless fire. Brilliant and terrifying to everyone around them. Black smoke spread outward. A cloud of poisonous oxygen released over the ocean.

Ripples rocked not only the water, but the very air around them, making some of their weaker members stumble back from the aftershock. Distantly, Kid registered Wire ordering his men to make sure they didn't drift too far for Killer to jump back. But it was for naught, since Killer reappeared by Kid's side, perhaps having sensed the coming danger should he have stayed on the other ship for a second longer than necessary.

"Get us out of here," Heat ordered, not wanting to get caught in the gas.

They had antidotes, but administering them was always a pain because of how quickly the poison spread. The last time their men got caught in one of Nettie's lingering explosions, they threw up enough to rot their teeth and turn their throats raw.

With his keen eyes, Kid had noticed one Marine officer actually attempt to shatter one of the flasks with his cudgel. He had good reflexes. Unfortunately for him, those flasks were meant to detonate as soon as their contents met oxygen. It had exploded, before the marine could even think to move out of the way. Kid knew from experience that his skin was melting from his bones right about now. He hadn't taken Nettie into his crew because she had some misguided penchant for mercy after all. Those marines would be little more than soft muscle and sinew by the time their comrades found them. Though that was assuming they didn't sink to the bottom of the ocean first.

Kid laughed manically at the destruction around him. His hunger was quickly forgotten in the face of so much chaos. He noted that the screams that pierced the air were exactly the same as the ones he'd heard so many times before from the Marines back in Paradise. The New World was harsh, but it seemed that all Marines, no matter their rank, whined the same.

Kid looked up at the sky. He could tell by the appearance of the sun that it was approaching afternoon now. He really needed to eat something. For the briefest of moments, his eyes met Nettie's from where she stood high above the rest. She was grinning from ear to ear. The triumphant look on her face was one that could infuriate him to no end when they were alone together, but right now, it made his chest swell with pride.

As she dropped her goggles back down to her neck, he mimicked her expression. And upon seeing the grin on Kid's face, his subordinates cheered, though it didn't break their sudden stare down. She had on a face that seemed to scream— _Look what I made!_ As if she were bragging to him about her growth. He knew she'd never say it out loud; she hated speaking about how much she'd developed her skills this past year they'd spent traversing the seas of the New World. Kid already knew though, no, they _all_ knew because they'd grown together.

They shared a long look after that. Both of their features were limned by streaks of sunlight and the flickering fires of the explosion from the warship.

He was the first to look away, only because his nose caught the scent of meat sizzling from the kitchen. Kid's eyes roamed over his crew—the Kid Pirates—in all of their hyperactive, violent glory. They were a good bunch. A strong one. If they continued to remain by his side, then he'd be able to conquer every ocean in the world. All of their dreams were riding on his shoulders. He swore he'd see them to their completion, and if he had to go through hell to do that, then he would. Gladly, too.

Behind them, the flames continued to burn red and glorious over the horizon.


	2. Shenanigans

_Disclaimer: I don't own One Piece._

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"Would you hold still?" Nettie asked, annoyed.

As if to spite her, Kid shifted away again.

She groaned at that. There was a threat in her eyes, but he only smirked in response. She was all bark when it came to him—and they both knew it. Besides, it wasn't as if he was doing it on purpose all of those other times. His head was just pounding. He needed to sit down, or at the very least, take something for the headache currently building right in the middle of his forehead and spreading outwards toward his temples. Their doctor was still fast asleep, however. Now, Kid wasn't kind enough to let him nap while he was suffering, but the bastard couldn't be found. He wouldn't be surprised if the man had passed out in some unused storage space with how hard they'd been drinking.

The crew had decided to throw a banquet the night prior, and their sobriety steadily wore away with the stars, as those annoyingly shiny things hid themselves in the face of tens of thousands of white-grey rays. Then, before he knew it, the sun was up and shining and he was passed out cold on some pillow that smelt like fish.

Nettie had woken him up because they were about to hit land. His crew knew him enough by now to know that he'd throw a fit if they anchored without waking him. It didn't matter how hung over he was. There was no way he was going to miss out on a taste of adventure just because his stomach decided to punish him for binge drinking.

Kid had snapped at her when she decided it would be a good idea to wake him by sitting on his bare back. She wasn't heavy, and it wasn't as if she'd slammed against him like a child, but he had a reputation to uphold. Having a woman stradling him, while he was face down with his insides protesting even the slightest of movements wasn't good for his image. Never mind that no one had been around to see it.

Plus, there was also a _big_ problem of morning wood. He thoroughly enjoyed it when she had flipped him on his backside and took care of the problem. It at least lifted his spirits somewhat… alright, a _lot_ , but he wasn't going to admit that to her. He'd rather eat metal first.

Kid's good mood had died an early death as soon as he stepped out onto the deck. The sun was out in full now. And was it just him, or was it worse than usual? They must've hit some kind of Summer Island because there was no way this was natural. They had passed six consecutive Winter Islands over the last few weeks. Of course it was _now_ that they had to hit the polar opposite. Roger, he swore that someone was out to get him. Possibly the ghost of some person he'd killed.

Nettie had followed after him with his coat thrown over her arm. She didn't have the missing daggers he usually kept strapped around him though, which was just another thing to add to the list of complaints he had about this morning in particular.

 _I need to find those, too,_ he thought sourly. _At least I have my goggles._

Kid was an angry bastard on a _good_ day. But if this relentless headache continued to sour his mood, then he might actually decide to pillage and burn down some marine base just for the hell of it.

"Stop sneering," Nettie told him.

"Stop ordering me around," he replied. All force.

She was seated against the railing of the ship with him in between her legs, so she could reach his face. His coat sat forgotten on top of a nearby crate that he didn't know the contents of, but with his acute sense of smell, he could hazard an accurate guess— _seasoning._ The two beside it had the words _weapon oil_ and _cooking oil_ stamped across in black. That couldn't be safe. But he didn't feel like ordering someone to separate them now.

He grunted when Nettie tapped his cheek with her finger to get him to face her again. She was currently applying a dark coat of tint on his lips and fixing his messy hair, making sure that he at least looked somewhat presentable for the rest of the world. Kid honestly couldn't care less what she did, so long as she stopped outright telling him what to do. He couldn't give two shits about his appearance. He'd just burn anyone that dared to laugh at him anyway. But it pleased her to fix him up, and he wasn't one to deny his woman contentment, especially if it came so _easily._

Kid closed his eyes, and tried to will away his headache with determination alone. Apparently, it didn't work because…

"I can't do this properly if you keep twisting your lips like that," Nettie said.

Kid shot her a scathing glance.

"If you want to continue, you're gonna have to either beg me or find that damned doctor," he barked at her, then slapped her hands away.

He backed up a few steps, so he actually had room to rub his temples without fear of elbowing her right off of the ship. If the sun didn't tone it down, he swore he'd spend a good portion of his life attempting to obliterate it from existence.

"What makes you think I want to do thi—"

"Screw you," he intervened, "your puppy dog eyebrows, _and_ your fucking lip tint."

"How is this my fault? Do you think I _want_ to deal with you and your hung-over bitchi—" Nettie cut herself off when Kid shot her a glare dark enough to inspire terror in even the most seasoned of pirates. She breathed to steady herself, then in a more controlled voice, added, "You're the one that told me to do this for you."

That made him pause. "When?"

"Last night, while you were happily laughing about cabbage rolls with Killer."

"What did I say exactly?" he asked, low, so that the others on the deck wouldn't hear. Because ocean's spirits, he didn't even remember seeing Killer, let alone _speaking_ to him. All he remembered was his first mate settling in for an early nap after a long night of watch duty, before he got completely shit-faced.

"I didn't follow you the whole night, but you broke out this big jar of ashes from your room."

"A jar?" Kid repeated dubiously. He didn't own anything like that.

"Yes, it was round and translucent with—"

"A giant cork lid?" he interrupted. "Are you talking about one of my personal flasks?"

"Can that thing still be considered a flask?"

"I swiped it from a research lab."

"Right, anyway, you broke that out."

" _Fuck._ What did I do with it?"

"You said they were pirates you once knew?"

"Old comrades from the South Blue that died in Paradise. Most were from before you joined. You remember Silvus?" He waited for her to nod. "Yea, he was in there, too."

"Oh, well, I don't know how to tell you this, but you started scattering the ashes all over the ocean and saying," she cleared her throat, then attempted to mimic his voice, " _this isn't the sea you loved, but the current will take you there eventually._ "

Kid's cheeks heated, despite himself.

"I did _what_?" he asked. His pride was wailing in a corner right about now. He could practically _hear_ the ghosts of his old shipmates screaming at him. No wonder the sun was intolerably bright today. They probably cursed him on their way out of that damned container.

"And then Killer appeared. I don't know when he started drinking, but his face was flushed, too. I thought he was going to stop you, but he only leaned against the railing and told you to scatter the ashes with more care."

"Why didn't someone else stop us?"

"We thought they were cigarette ashes!" Nettie defended, while attempting to hold back her laughter. It was a fruitless endeavor. Soon enough, she was doubled over herself and wheezing a string of broken, _I can't believe_ and _ashes,_ over and over again.

Kid groaned in despair. His mind was so preoccupied by the thought of what he'd done that he didn't even notice that a good portion of his crew had heard the story and were now laughing as well. Some had even fallen to the floor with their arms wrapped around their stomachs. Oh, sure, they felt bad for their old comrades, but the fact that _this_ was how their ashes ended up dispersed in the New World, instead of back in the South Blue, was one hell of a story.

On the bright side, at least Kid's headache was gone. Or rather, he just wasn't concerned about it anymore.

"Shit," Kid repeatedly cursed under his breath.

"After you were done—"

"There's _more_?" he interrupted.

"A lot more. But it was after that mini… _funeral_." Her lips twitched, and Kid shot her a warning glance.

"Spit it out already!" he demanded, harsh enough to sober some of his mates in back of him. But it clearly wasn't enough to deter her.

"You came to find me, and then insisted that I help you prepare in the morning." Nettie snickered when his upper lip curled upward into a grimace. "Your orders are absolute, right Captain?"

The smirk on her face made him want to throttle her.

Kid settled for repelling her right off of his ship instead.


	3. Healing

_Disclaimer: I don't own One Piece._

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"Go back to sleep," Kid told her once she entered their room again.

Nettie was bandaged from head to toe, but she simply shook her head at him. The disobedience annoyed him somewhat, but not enough for him to actually do anything about it. It wasn't like he was any better than her. In fact, the state he was in now was a hundred times worse. They'd gotten into a fight with the Emperor, Red-Haired Shanks, and none of them had come out unscathed—he'd even lost an arm.

But unlike him, she couldn't just eat and sleep off her injuries, then be as good as new in a few days time. Even he knew that it would be better for her to help the rest of their mates that did have his inhumane healing, and _then_ focus on fixing up herself, so they could pick up the slack. Because right now, most of their members were confined to bed rest until they could stand without tipping over. That included him.

Nettie suddenly strode past him toward the door.

Kid's eyes lit up as a foreign sense of alarm gripped him. It felt like he had a fist clenched around his heart, and seeing her limp around with all of those bandages only made it grip tighter. Nettie looked as if only a few sub-par prayers held her together… now that he thought about it, that wasn't far from the truth.

Kid leapt from his position on his bed. He did his best to ignore the wave of nausea that assaulted him, as he seized her wrist. She turned sharply at the contact. His grip was tight enough to bruise. Realizing this, he tore his hand away, burned by the thought of accidentally breaking her any more than she already had been.

It was only after he stood before her that he wobbled from the loss of purchase that his headboard had provided him. Nettie reached out, gripping him by the elbows to steady him.

"What's wrong, Captain?" she asked. "You need to go back to bed."

Kid didn't reply.

Instead, he glared at his hand, trying to will it to obey. But his self-control had long ago splintered into nothing. He found his fingers clenched around the hem of her coat, wanting her to stay, despite the prideful denial resting on the tip of his tongue, just waiting to be given voice.

They stood there for a long time, staring each other down. Both lost to the tension between them. Until finally, when the questioning look in her eyes became unbearable, when Kid had mastered himself enough to unlock his jaw and look away from her captivating gaze—the words spilled forth. Toxic and biting and entirely like him. In the hazy blaze of his own mind, however, he could only recall his lips forming the word, ' _leave_ ,' followed by a string of derisive expletives that left of their own volition.

He hated it.

Hated how she shuddered, and how he felt it all throughout his body. Hated how he could scarcely remember what even left his mouth. He especially hated how she reeled back like a puppet yanked by its strings. For an instant, Nettie's face fell. Her eyes closed just enough for her to crush away the immense, inexplicable disappointment, but then the instant was gone, disappearing like a flock of startled birds.

Nettie lifted her chin, visibly upset with him, inadvertently showing him that she was no puppet. She was here. She was real. Defiant and unyielding.

Spirits, he wanted to kiss her.

A part of him _really_ hated that.

Kid grimaced, absolutely furious at his thoughts. But she seemed to understand what he wanted just by looking into his eyes because her cheeks flushed at the sight of his dark gaze trained upon her.

What the hell was she doing getting that embarrassed when he hadn't even said a damn thing yet? He didn't know the answer to that question, but that didn't stop a trail of warmth from spearing down his face and going all the way to his chest, where it exploded right over that tainted thing others called a heart.

The way she grinned up at him and met his eyes then, despite the dark blush on her cheeks was a testament to her confidence— _in him_ , he realized with no small amount of surprise. Kid lived and breathed death; he lived his life as a pirate to the absolute fullest. The fact that she knew and accepted him for what he was made his blood rush inside of his veins like river water forced through a too small sieve.

Sure, she might've been angry at him for his harsh words. But there was acceptance there, too. He barely even remembered how many fights they'd had before that tacit understanding came to exist. She didn't change him, no, she took his personality in stride like no one else had and let him be his ridiculous, insane, and utterly ferocious self. So, she deserved so much more than his cold defiance and careless words.

She deserved…

"Go to sleep," he repeated harshly. Kid didn't know how to be gentle, so he didn't try.

"Is than an order, Captain?" she asked.

He grunted.

"What do you think?"


	4. Extra

_Disclaimer: I don't own One Piece._

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 _ **Request by IkeSy: A chapter of pure narration. Any setting is okay.**_

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Contrary to popular belief, not all of his adventures involved him exploding from anger and razing entire villages to the ground… only most of them.

Kid's favorite and most cited example was a small tracking expedition that he had with Killer and Nettie when she first joined. The man they were after stole a log pose from their navigator and led them down a wild goose chase deep into the island they were forced to moor on for six days. They had ended up in a bustling town, where Killer learned that the man had only stopped there to wait for his captain to arrive.

Killer had convinced Kid to linger until the two rendezvoused so they could deal with them both all in one go. Kid had conceded for two reasons: one, because his hunger had gotten the better of him; two, because he wanted to see the look on his captain's face when he butchered his subordinate before his eyes. No one stole from the Kid Pirates and lived to tell the tale. No one.

To avoid people, they'd rented _—_ broke into _—_ a small out-of-the-way cottage in a quiet corner of the town beside a deep forest. It was frequently leased to travelers that wanted to "get away" from city life. Kid would've much rather stayed inside some inn with a nearby bar, but this helped rumors from circulating that he was in the area. Better they believe that only Killer was wandering the streets, than him and additional members of his crew.

The place itself was simple. It had cedar beams and a slanted blue roof. There were black window frames that Kid admired because of their sleekness and a single potted plant with white flowers beside the front door. Nettie had poured some concoction over the dirt, and Kid remembered it turning a vivid green before they left. When he asked her about it, she only smiled. It was wild in a way that made him want to return it, though with ten times more ferocity.

Kid didn't remember Nettie making any disparaging comments about the place. He, however, made plenty. The inside almost bored him to tears. It bore only the barest of necessities. There wasn't even running water; only an iron pump outside. While he didn't grow up pampered in some rich nobleman's house, he couldn't deny that it wasn't exactly the most convenient of places to stay. But he did concede that with all of the noise and distraction gone, it was easier to pay attention to the more casual details. From the trail of black ants that ambled across piles of dirt to reach half-rotted fruit outside of the cottage's front steps, to the lambent lamplight from the town at night. Each provided a breadth of character.

When asked why it was one of his favorite adventures, Kid claimed it was because of the look on that sorry excuse of a captain's face when he wrecked his subordinate. But as he said it, he would always close his eyes and re-imagine the actual reason in his head. Kid would never admit that he treasured his time there because there was a particularly haunting occasion when he caught Nettie returning from a wash. Killer was nowhere to be found, and he'd been glad for it.

They had no buckets to carry water, so they took turns cleaning up outside where the iron pump was. She was shivering because of the chill that night so often brought along with it, though she made no move to remedy that. Kid still remembered how Nettie's robe was half-heartedly closed around her waist and her hair was knotted in a careless tie at the base of her neck. Her flasks, her goggles, everything else was gone.

Kid stared only for an instant, mesmerized by a trail of water that slipped down her jaw, her collar, then further into a valley that he couldn't see. Nettie's laugh had startled him back to attention. She stepped closer to shut his jaw, and he retaliated by wiping the offending trail the droplet had left with his thumb. By the end of it, they were both a mix between embarrassed and smug. Though for him, it was mostly the latter. His eyes kept trailing after her that whole night. He didn't stop even when Killer returned.

It had been one of the most memorable experiences of his life, and also the start of one of his more infuriating habits. Because he realized that, unlike the ship, the cottage was small enough for such incidents to occur rather frequently. It made him secretly wish to get a tinier ship in the future, even though he knew that would only be a worst case scenario type deal. Because his pride wouldn't allow a downgrade.

So, Kid had instead settled for always choosing the smallest accommodations whenever he was alone with Nettie on an island. If it was uncomfortable, then she just had to deal with it because he wasn't giving her money from their stash to get a better—or even a separate—room. He thought of it as a happy compromise, though he was sure Nettie saw it as just him being cheap. Thankfully, she kept her grumbling low enough for him to ignore.

It was only once they finally got together that he found out that she knew why he did it. Kid wasn't one to apologize. Especially for things that he wasn't even sorry about in the first place. Besides, it made for one hell of a story; just another one to the long tally that was only shared between them. He had tens, no, hundreds more with the rest of his mates.

Bonds made a crew. Big moments of hardship gave them strength. But it was those memories of the smaller instances in between that truly cemented their connection. Kid lived for those times for the simple reason that he was a pirate.

And pirates cherished all forms of treasure.

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 _A/N: This short ended more wholesome than I meant it to, but it was the first thing I thought up. Sorry about that! This was actually a request for a different story. I didn't want to write for that fandom, so you guys get it instead. Kid needs more love anyway._

 _Please review._


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